Visualization of Ideas

Brilliant presentation design is instantly forgotten

I started NoMore because, as a Management Consultant, I always felt like I was chasing my tail. Anyone who has ever worked in consultancy will almost certainly recognise that feeling of having too much to do and too little time.

Since we began offering PowerPoint services in May of 2016, we’ve come a long way. We now have specialists across 3 continents – having identified the very best specialists through our rigorous testing and security process – and have expanded our range of services to include desk research and data entry, all at NoMore’s signature low hourly rates.

Before I started NoMore, I was a Management Consultant, working for McKinsey and for a local Private Equity fund called CataCap. I loved my job and everything about it, except for one thing: The endless hours of PowerPoint.

Now, it might sound counterintuitive that the CEO of an outsourcing company specialising in PowerPoint services would make such an admission, but stick with me.

I hated PowerPoint because it took up so much of my time – time that I could have been using on much more valuable tasks than formatting the slides of a 100-page presentation. Many of you are probably thinking: “If PowerPoint is taking up hours of your day, perhaps you’re being too much of a perfectionist…”

But here’s the thing – to be as effective as possible, your PowerPoint presentation needs to follow certain visual guidelines and cannot contain inconsistent, poor visuals – the design of your presentation is just as important as the content itself. In fact, if anything, it is more important.

Just consider this: When was the last time you watched a really good presentation – you know, the kind of presentation that makes you super excited, full of ideas, and ready to start executing? Now, think about the design of that presentation.

I’m willing to bet that most of you can’t even remember a single slide, and that is exactly my point.

A truly great presentation is one that sticks in your mind for all the right reasons and is remembered for its key messages. If your audience is too busy concentrating on the fact that you’ve used five different font sizes, you’ve failed to align your slides or that your graphs are a complete mystery - the chances of getting your key messages across quickly diminishes.

Brilliant presentation design is all the things you hate spending hours on and might be tempted to just skip.

Brilliant presentation design is alignment, the right use of font sizes, creative use of the corporate guidelines, colour theory, understanding what drives attention, and a relentless focus on consistency.

Trust me, I’ve been there. I knew that my presentations would be more effective if I invested the time required to make them perfect; I just hated actually doing it. NoMore was born out of my desire to hand that repetitive but necessary part of the job to someone else and – as it turns out – I wasn’t the only one feeling like that.

So the next time you’re looking at your to-do list and wishing you had more than 24 hours in a day, I hope that you’ll think about giving NoMore a call.